Meditation is not about escaping from difficulty but about meeting it with awareness.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

The heart of the path is quite simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

The object of meditation and the mind which knows it must be noted as they occur. If they are not noted, desire arises and disturbs concentration.

The path of insight is a path of discovery, not a path of creation. We are discovering what is already there.

Don't think that only sitting with the eyes closed is practice. If you do think this way, then quickly change your thinking.

The goal of meditation is not to reach some highest place, but to remain in the place where you already are.

All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow; acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births in death.

There is no difference at all between samsara and nirvana. There is no difference at all between nirvana and samsara.

The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?

The Buddha's teaching is not a philosophy or a religion; it is a method of practice.

The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel.

The past is just a memory. The future is just a dream. Be here now.

The only way to fail at meditation is to stop doing it.

Kindness is the solution to all of life's problems.

Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one's own acts, done and undone.

Although all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, they function perfectly well.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.

The grass is greener where you water it.

All experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.

Emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is the space of possibility.

When you look deeply into your anger, you will see that the person you call your enemy is also suffering. As soon as you see that, the capacity for accepting and having compassion for them is there.

The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.

The Buddha's teaching is a middle way between all extremes, between eternalism and annihilationism, between self-indulgence and self-torture.

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.

My religion is to live and die without regret.

Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don't try to figure anything out. Don't try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest.

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.